Want to know which online service makes my life a lot easier? Hipmunk. For the uninitiate, Hipmunk is a flight search service with a difference. In addition to sorting available flights by the standard duration and price metrics, Hipmunk can also arrange flights according to "agony", i.e. incorporating factors such as number of stops and total duration. Although its mobile site is adequate, I am pleased to report that Hipmunk has finally launched its Android app, which is available for free from the Market.

The app has all the features of the desktop and mobile site: you enter your destination, departure and arrival dates, select the number of passengers, and whether you wish to travel by coach (economy), business or first class. The app will spit out a grid of available flights and show you their departure and arrival times as well as their price. The grid of flights can be sorted by "agony", by price, or by its departure/arrival time. You can click on any flight for more information and routes which offer in-flight WiFi are indicated by an icon.

Unfortunately, while you can view all the flight details, you cannot purchase flight tickets from within the app itself. Instead you have to either navigate from the app to the airline's mobile website or alternatively, you can use the passphrase provided by the app on the www.hipmunk.com/finish site to complete your transaction.

This app looks and works great. In fact according to an interview of Hipmunk's Android developer Ryan Oldenburg by GigaOM,the Android app does everything that the iOS version, released earlier this year, does. Indeed in some cases the Android app has a couple of features not yet implemented in its iOS counterpart, such as the ability to easily clear flight search history.

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ChumbleSpuzz

Love Hipmunk! A similar app that does this is OnTheFly. Both started out as web sites, but I've always liked Hipmuk's web interface better. Should be interesting to compare the apps.